


After the Rain Comes the Rainbow

by Percival



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Artist Kylo Ren, Depression, Eventual Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kylux - Freeform, M/M, More tags will be added as the story progresses, Phasma is a champion, Sad Backstories, Slow Build, chef hux
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2018-02-07
Packaged: 2018-06-08 03:59:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6838213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Percival/pseuds/Percival
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The moment Ben Solo Organa could, he left behind everything of his current life including his name and moved in with his estranged Grandfather.  Now two time college drop out, Kylo Ren feels stuck in a constant cycle of insecurities and depression. Feeling nothing but lost, he accepts a random date with a man out of boredom hoping maybe at least for some entertainment for his life.</p>
<p>Bren Hux lost everything, his former life, fiance, and good name, but with the help from Phasma, he is trying to rebuild his life from the ashes.  The cute broody artist that comes in makes good eye candy as he works the bar but thanks to a meddlesome blonde hair friend he ends up with a number and a date with said artist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Kylo had spent the last three hours sitting in front of his computer, trying to do his paperwork, while actually playing a game on his phone. The empty word document glared back at him in the darkness of his room, taunting him to even type his name and information as directed by the professor. This was the most productive Kylo had been since waking up at 3 in the afternoon on one of his rare days off, and from the moment he woke, he hated himself for wasting his day. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to really care about the paper that he should be writing, did he really want to go back to school in the fall? 

Sensing that he wouldn’t get anything done tonight, he close down the system and pocketed his phone, Kylo was hungry. The house was quiet and dark as he fumbled in the kitchen in search of food, staring blankly into the fridge debating his choice of sauces, because apparently that was all they had to offer. It seemed he was going out instead, unless he wanted to make a racket that would surely wake up his grandfather. 

Slipping out the side doorr, Kylo began the short trek to the late night bar and grill, First Order, about half a mile from his grandfather’s house. It wouldn’t be too full considering it was a Tuesday evening in the cusp of spring. The melting snow created slush that froze overnight and made the roads and sidewalk a nightmare to keep up with. It kept most people in who didn’t want to deal with the fickle weather home, but the regulars at First Order still managed to make a show. Kylo being one of them, sat himself into his regular booth, tucked around the side of the dinning room and waited for one of the troppers to come and grab his order.

First Order had originally been Empire Bar back in the old days, according to his grandfather, but once old man Palpatine had gone and bit the bullet no one had wanted to step up to buy the place after the who scandel. The place had sat vacant for some odd years before some kid from the west coast had went and bought the bar. He had added on a kitchen, along with updating the bar, however there were some relics from when it was still Empire Bar. The crisp white uniforms of the waiter that took Kylo’s order for example, was one of them. Oddly enough it worked well with the new updates and people were impressed.

Kylo began scratching out a drawing on the edge of one of the napkins with a pen he kept tucked in his hoodie while he waited. Cursing himself internally for not bringing any scratch paper, Kylo would have to be satisfied with the recyled napkins that laid infront of him. He began patterning his next project, maybe this time he wouldn’t short himself a half a foot like he did last time. He had made it work, sprisingly, and his friend had said no one would notice.

A plate was set down in front of him, and when the tropper that brought it out did not go away, Kylo looked up to see what they wanted. Unlike the other troopers that were generally male, oddly sexist Kylo thought, this one was definatly of the female varitey. She had one of those trendy haircuts, short and colored a platniumm blonde, and she was tall, even taller than Kylo with her heels. 

“So…anything else I can get for you sir?” asked the tall imposing trooper that stood beside his table.

“No.”

“Are you sure, more water, ketchup, maybe a date if you’re not seeing anyone?”

Kylo was glad that he did not currently have anything in his mouth, because he certainly would have choked.

“What! No!”

“As in no you are not seeing anyone or as in no you don’t want anything else?”

“Both and I don’t need a date,” Kylo enunciated hoping she would leave him to his food, face bright red with embaressment. 

Instead she took that as a cue to slide across from him into the opposite booth, “Are you sure, you look kind of lonely?”

He glared at her, he didn’t need her pity, just like he hadn’t needed Uncle Luke’s or Uncle Chewie’s. “I didn’t think employees were allowed proposition their customers.”

“Good thing I don’t work here then,” the lady replied. “Regardless, I never said the date was with me, I was asking for someone else.”

Kylo turned to see who she was alluding to at the bar. A red hair man was behind the bar currently working on making someone’s order.

“You see, gingerbread over there has had his eye on you for the last few months and as a friend I have decided that instead of watching him debate whether or not to even talk to you I would just ask you for him,” she explained.

“Oh.”

They sat there watching the man, Kylo cataloguing the way his dark crisp shirt clung to him, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was not a short man by any standards, but defiantly shorter then Kylo, but he moved with a sense of purpose and direction. The darkness of his shirt and the lighting behind the bar made his skin even more incandescent and a dusting of freckles across his face prominent even from across the restaurant. He walked with a purpose, directing where all the drinks needed to go and checking in with the troopers who stop by with orders. 

“Well, should I tell him you said yes?”

Kylo turned around to face the blonde, debating his choices. This could be just an elaborate joke, at his expense, which meant he would have to find a new late night place to eat at, or she could be telling the truth. Didn’t his grandfather tell him to trust his gut more often, something about just letting the force show you what to do? Whatever the reason, it would be some entertainment at least from the dullness of his current life.

“You don’t even know if I swing that way.” he replied.

“So you checking out that trooper’s butt was just a fluke?”

“Fine, I’m free on Thursday night.”

“Wonderful, you mind if I grab your number for him then. Oh and by the way, I’m Phasma,” she introduced herself and reaching a hand across the table for him to shake.

“..um, I’m Kylo…”

With their exchange in handshakes, she stared expectantly at him, before Kylo caved and wrote his number down on the napkin he was doodling on. She thanked him and moved out from the booth towards the man behind the bar. Kylo watched their interaction before the man turned to look him in the eye and Kylo glanced down at his burger. Maybe he should just get a box and take it home.

\---

When Phasma walked over and handed him a napkin with a string of numbers and what looked like chicken scratch Hux had almost thrown it away. That was until she said it was tall dark and broody’s number. He had turned to the booth he knew Kylo was sitting at and caught him quickly turning away.

“What did you do?”

“I just asked if he wanted a date and he said yes. It wasn’t like I held a gun to his head and made him give me his number.”

“Phasma, for the last time I don’t need your help.”

“Oh really, who helped you move all the way from Coruscant to this little town?”

Hux turned away from her, to finish another drink order for AT 2589. He didn’t have an answer for her, because she was right. After years of building his life’s work, a successful bakery line and stores across the west coast, his partner and fiancé at the time had doubled crossed him the worst way possible. Hux had lost everything and his good name in the food industry was destroyed. After his breakdown and year in the hospital, Phasma had been there for him the entire time. Even going so far as to co-sign and fund this restaurant of his for him when he couldn’t get the loan to purchase it outright.

“I didn’t mean it like that Phasma, I said he was cute that was all.”

“Hux, I know what Tarkin did to you was horrible, but you can’t let that define relationships for you. Plus it’s only one date, if you don’t like him, you never have to interact with him again,” she pleaded.

“One date, that’s all I will agree to.” Hux relented, taking out his phone to input the number.

She smiled, and hugged him before Hux brushed her off to finish more drinks for people at the bar. Hux tried not to think about having Kylo’s number in his phone for the rest of his shift. When Hux first noticed Kylo, it had been a slow night and he had sent most of the troopers home. Hux had went and cleaned off the table after Kylo had left to find a few of the napkins had drawings on them. A profile of FN 2187, sketched out on a flimsy napkin, along with the bar on another. Hux had cleared off much of the table when he noticed that last one, it was of him hunched over the counter doing the numbers for the night.

After that, every time Kylo came in Hux would follow him through the restaurant. He would find his eyes always going back to Kylo eventually and Phasma had caught him looking one night. Hux had begrudgingly admitted that he found Kylo pleasant on the eyes much to her glee. It was what brought him to his current situation as he glared down at his phone after closing up the restaurant and returning home. Hux sent a short message, plugged his phone in and promptly ignored as he got ready for bed.


	2. Chapter 2

Kylo was going to throw up, or at least he wanted to, that way for sure he know he could get out of his obligation to the acceptance of this date. His grandfather had told him that he looked fine and to stop messing with his hair, but Kylo was inclined to think that he was biased. Growing up, Grandfather Skywalker always said that Kylo looked like his grandmother, even their personalities were similar. He grew up on his grandfather’s stories of how they met and what love really was, how his grandmother had married him, with her royal upbringing and against all the wishes of everyone around her. His grandfather had loved her so much, and perhaps too much, and when she died during childbirth, a part of him went with her. 

His grandfather had admitted to him once, when Kylo had freshly turned 21 and they had both had one too many drinks, that he had been lost without her. Born Anakin Skywalker, he grew up in the poor sandy nation of Tatooine, a slave to a salvager, Anakin had been blessed to have even his mother beside him. However their time together had been short lived, and having never had a father and with no other parental figure in his life, was lost on how to raise his set of twins. It did not help also, that war would soon break out and he would be drafted to help fight against the threat to his new nation. Kylo’s grandfather had left his two young children to his mentor Obi-Wan and Bail Organa, friend of his late grandmother. 

The war would take much from him and with it the early years of his children's childhood. It would build the foundation of the resentment and hurt that would eventually estrange both his children from him. It wasn’t until the birth of Ben, named after his late mentor that some reconciliation had been made in their relationships. When it began to be apparent that history would repeat itself with Ben, he had offered his home and accepted him as Kylo, who saw him as the only person who really cared for him.

Kylo had grown up to his parents being gone for long periods of time, a mother in politics and a rouge father who didn’t hang around much. He had tried to be everything his parents wanted, excelled at school, the picture of perfection, honor rolls and extra circulars. His parents would say that he turned overnight, into a monster they would no longer recognize, but Kylo knew it was a long time coming. The fight that had followed was of epic proportion and he had left, packed a bag and left the empty house of his childhood. 

Anakin, had opened the door to find him in tears and had believed him when no one else would. When the world had turned its back on Kylo, his grandfather had encouraged him and sought help for him. He had been there when the depression and and the anxiety had forced Kylo to dropout of college the second time, telling him that it wasn’t his fault. Now his grandfather was telling him he need not panic about his date, after all Kylo needed to live life a little.

“Are you sure he won’t care, I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard.”

“Ditch the sunglasses, you look like a fuck boi.”

“Grandpa!”

“I’m sure what you were wearing an hour ago would have been fine.” Anakin said, giving a nod to the t-shirt and jeans carelessly tossed in the corner of Kylo’s room, “and if he doesn’t think that’s good enough then that man is a fool.”

“...you sure?”

“I’m sure, schatz.”

Kylo scrambled to change as Anakin left the room, feeling reassured after his grandfather’s words. He made sure to take his pills and double checked himself in the mirror. Where his mother had been a beauty in her youth, and his father being quite the looker, Kylo had taken after neither of them. His ears were too big for his face along with a nose that didn’t look quite right on his face. The sprinkling of moles didn’t help either, dark against his pale face and his dark brown generic eyes stared at his reflection in disgust. Some days, he felt okay with his looks and then like today, the ugliest person to ever grace the Earth. 

He closed his eyes and traced out the patterns his therapist had suggested on his arm. Around and around until he felt centered enough to gather his thoughts. He took a deep breath and then another before he grabbed his wallet and keys, shutting off the lights in his room.

“I’m heading out then,” Kylo said giving his grandfather a hug on his way to the garage, “were having dinner at that place next to the theater before our movie.”

“Enjoy yourself schatz,” his grandfather reassured, “and it’s okay if you want to come home early.”

“Thanks.”

\---

Sitting at the restaurant suddenly made things feel real to Kylo. He almost wished that Hux would stand him up, it would have been preferable to the dread that was settling in before his pills would start to work. Kylo began tracing the patterns on his arm again letting it lull him into a calm before someone slid into the set in front of him. 

Hux looked like he was heading to a photo shoot and this dinner was just a stop. Gone was the gel that often held his hair together at his own restaurant, but still styled effortlessly, and dressed in a dark black button up that fit him so well it looked sewn on. Kylo knew it must have been custom tailored, the way the cut helped accent his shoulders and trim his waist.

“It is you know, I had it done when I was in Coruscant.”

“Oh…” Kylo wanted the ground to open up and swallow him, god he hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

The silence that came after that was awkward and unsettling, with Kylo glaring into the menu, face hot with embarrassment. Thankfully, the return of the watier help break the tension and Kylo was brave enough to ask, “...um is it a Joclad Danva, he has a unique way of stitching?”

“Yes.” Hux answered, impressed with Kylo’s attention to detail. He was able to tell who had made his shirt just from the style of stitches that Danva liked to use on his cuffs. “Are you into fashion then?”

Kylo beamed, this was a topic he excelled in and could go on at lengths, “I am, Danva was able to take what is a basic to the wardrobe and reinvent it in a way that made us all feel stupid for not doing it already in the first place.”

“I would wholeheartedly agree, however what he has done in his latest collection seems to be a crime to our eyes.”

The banter that followed continued over dinner, providing them both an easy flow to their conversation. Kylo found that Hux had moved in with his brother when he started that First Order and that he had a distaste for the gaudy “native” movement in fashion currently. “Distasteful and clearly an insult to the original and quite beautiful works” and Kylo had nodded his head in agreement, clearly seduced by Hux’s words. 

They ended up talking for much longer than either of them wanted, missing the first quarter of the movie, and rushing in to take their seats. Kylo enjoyed the way Hux didn’t press him when he avoided some personal questions and always directed the conversation into another direction. Hux would have made a great politician, and Kylo had let him know it after the movie as they walked to their separate cars.

“Food has a way of not yelling at you when you make mistakes.” Hux had replied a smile lighting up his face. “I find it much easier to peel potatoes then to give speeches just to get a vote.”

“The world is missing out on your command of the common language.” Kylo said, as they walked up to his car. He wished the night was longer, having enjoyed their company together. 

“Would you like to go out again, Kylo?” Hux said as he opened up his car door.

“I’d like that----if you want to that is----” he nervously replied.

“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t want to.”

Oh god, Kylo was going to throw up after all, when had Hux gotten so close.

“Can I kiss you?” 

Unable to audibly answer, voice gone from sheer shock Kylo was sure. He nodded, closing his eyes as Hux leaned in for a kiss. It was not what he was expecting, Hux’s lips were cold from the late winter air and yet when he kissed Kylo’s cheek it felt like Kylo was on fire. 

“Goodnight Kylo.”


End file.
